Managing Diversity in the Workplace
Valuing diversity should be a consistent effort of every professional development- from the top leadership to employees at all levels within the organization.
The growing economic liberalism necessitated increasing communication among people of varied cultures, faiths and milieu. Presently people are not dealing with a protected market. They are presently succumbed to global liberalization and prone to competition forced by almost every continent. The diversity is considered advantageous to both contacts and employers. Irrespective of the fact that the associates are considered mutually dependent in the workplaces, due regard to their differences have profound impact on enhancement of productivity. The diversity in the workplace decreases the number of law suits and enhances the marketing opportunities, recruitment, creativity and business image. In an environment that commands flexibility and creativity as the prime elements for competitiveness, diversity is considered to be significant for the success of the organization. Moreover, the results of this cannot be set aside. Such organizations- both profit and non-profit ones necessitate diversity to become more creative and prone to change. (Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits, Challenges, and the Required Managerial Tools)
The maximization and capitalization of the workplace diversity has been a matter of great concern for the management at present. As the diversity in management is considered to be a significant organizational challenge, the managers must be aware of the in a multicultural work environment. The supervisors and managers are required to be capable of teaching themselves and others within their organizations to regard the multicultural variations in both associates and customers so as to treat everybody with self-respect. (Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits, Challenges, and the Required Managerial Tools) The managers at the top level of the organization emphasize that the people of the company are their most significant asset. The companies striving to surpass the traditional ideology acknowledge that the people are most important in the competitive environment irrespective of the fact of race, religion, gender, age, sexual preference, or physical disability for accomplishing success. (Recruiting and Managing a Diverse Workforce) It has therefore been urged in various decisive works for the necessity of the organizations to invest, create and sustain a culture of a diverse human resource base. This is due to the fact that the people are considered to be the most important asset of the organization. (Managing Diverse Workforce — Views of a Bystander: Management, Recruitment, Socialization, and Teamwork)
Discussion:
The accomplishment of success in creating a workforce diversity program requires attraction and retention of the highest quality individuals in the talent pool. The HR professionals visualize this in terms of more than the traditional recruitment methods, better avenues for good people and then acquiring necessary skills to manage the . It necessitates an ever growing awareness of how people from various milieus react to the authority, communication and overall business manners and associates their communities of affiliation. The president of , an online jobs board that exerts a pull on a rich demographic mix, Michael Forrester, opines that keeping away from the diverse groups even the minorities, the visually impaired or other groups so as to force them under represented in the workforce means missing out on huge pockets of the talent pool. Referring to a huge organization with successful diversity programs, such as Federal Express and the U.S. Army, he pointed out that with meticulous planning and implementation any organization can proceed for recruitment and restore an integration of workers. (Recruiting and Managing a Diverse Workforce)
The crucial principle involved in the process of diversity is to make certain the creation of a diverse workforce through recruitment, development and upward mobility. The corporate efforts almost all have an intense element sparked towards making certain a considerably diverse workforce, all levels with special stress on race and gender. Some of this is motivated by agreements. However, the corporate diversity are growingly been provoked by the reality of an increasingly diverse labor pool and growing market portions of cultural divergent groups along with internal organizational inequities and systemic obstacles to the sequence or access to these groups. The corporate manger, diversity & work/life at Hewlett-Packard, Emily Duncan makes us understand that this task is not new. The efforts are being made to establish a base for a long period of time that has assisted us to land us where we are presently and that drive us into the future. (Creating a Diverse Workforce)
The means to accomplish a successful construction of diverse, highly skilled workforce for the coming days initiate with a strong leadership obligation and awareness of where the agency is presently. Further, experience has exhibited that successful diversity efforts are based on the locating the agency first. Establishment of the agency has various facets. First is making certain the promise to the diversity program. This involves the crucial components of top level leadership assistance and the pledge for necessary resources to an authenticity. Moreover, it is significant to have a realistic depiction of agency readiness to drift forward, on the basis of both current demography of the agency and on the cultural environment and potential obstacle that prevail. (Building and Maintaining a Diverse Workforce)
At last the information from each of this evaluation are assimilated into the existing agency workforce designing models and applied to aim at opportunities for recruitment, hiring and retention. Having such commitment and information decisively in hand the agency is found to be sure of the fact that it has established itself for success in designing and executing an effective diversity program. The obligation is considered to be the basis of a successful initiative to construct and manage a diverse, high skilled workforce. Such pledges are to be clearly spelled out and communicated from the top leadership to employees at all levels. (Building and Maintaining a Diverse Workforce)
Diversity is considered to be fundamentally a commercial concern that may symbolize a termination to the ‘one-size-fits-all’ ideology of management. However, the truth is that the natural preference is birds of same feather flocks together and people like to be with them who are like their own. This gives rise to a problem in the company in terms of the contradiction that the workforce strives to maintain familiarity and stability amidst the variations of the global environment. However, when one of the objectives is to fetch people greater cross-cultural competence it is essential to induce them to come out of their comfort zone. It is essential to create opportunities consciously for them and to work with the people usually they are not working with at present. (Creating a Diverse Workforce)
Roosevelt opined that management of diversity is a wide-ranging process for creation of a job environment that incorporates everyone. While finding out a successful diverse workforce, an effective manager should focus on personal awareness. It is essential that both managers and associates are required to be aware of their personal biases. Therefore, the organizations are required to establish, implement and maintain ongoing training since a single day training may not succeed in changing the behavior of the people. The managers also are required to be aware of the fact that the evenhandedness is not always equality. Several limitations are there to this generalization. (Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits, Challenges, and the Required Managerial Tools) comprehensive work environment may incorporate but not necessarily confined to the recruitment, hiring, retention, promotion patterns, and subscription to professional journals or concentration on interior designing like posters on the walls depicting your diverse stakeholders, customers and employees. Additionally, a manager should think of everyday language and attitudes that are common in the workplace that can effectively explain women, minorities or People with Disabilities. Appreciating diversity should therefore be a reliable part of the ongoing professional development of every employee, supervisor/manager and senior executive. Appreciating diversity is visualized as a staff development initiative that is used as a variation agent that helps the individuals aware and shift their feelings and attitudes among differences. The organizational approaches aiming at management of the workplace diversity necessitates skill enhancement processes. The successful implementation of task or program amidst diversity necessitates the ability to work with complexity, multiple dimensions like human resources amidst internal and external programs or varied levels of management. (Leading a Diverse Workforce)
Additionally, agencies necessitate initiating actions to make it certain that resources and staff are available for each stage of the program. The agencies are to be aware of their demographic condition. This is ensured with development of the workforce database that provides a clear idea of the workforce and the way it reflects diversity at all levels and in every prime occupation and in all organizational components. The reports that the agency prepares annually constitute a good source of data on the agency workforce. Placement of the workforce appropriately also incorporates the evaluation of the preparedness of the agency to create and support a complete diversity management program. Most of the agencies have dynamic processes and others are less well established. (Building and Maintaining a Diverse Workforce)
Agencies are required to develop a good understanding of their individual strengths and weaknesses so as to plan their programs to their best advantage. An agency acquires this information by evaluating the views of the employees on diversity issues. Analysis of the trends and projections of the workforce in determination of the skills gaps and necessitates and devising successive planning strategies are crucial moves for agency strategic and business planning. Such efforts facilitate the managers with the required facts so as to be aware of the assignment of resources and the making the necessary planning for the future work of the organization and the points of concentration of their energy to produce a high performance organization. (Building and Maintaining a Diverse Workforce)
The successful managers understand the necessary skills for producing a successful diverse workforce. Firstly they should be aware of the discrimination and its results. Secondly, the managers must acknowledge their own cultural ethos and chauvinisms. The diversity does not mean only the differentiation between the groups but rather about the differences among individuals. Each of the individual is considered to be a specific entity and therefore, does not stand for a common group. At last, the managers are required to be desirous of varying the system of organization if necessary. (Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits, Challenges, and the Required Managerial Tools) When an agency is placed for success and proceeds to plan and execute its diversity program to incorporate the specific elements that caters to construct and maintain its diverse, high quality workforce. Particularly, the several evaluation methodologies of the workforce profile, the work environment of the agency and the future workforce necessities are required to have identified strengths, weaknesses and targets of opportunities. These are considered to be significant elements in the sphere of specific efforts that comprise of the diversity programs. (Building and Maintaining a Diverse Workforce)
There exist several confrontations to management of the diverse workforce. Management of the diversity is considered to be more than somewhat becoming aware of the differentiations prevailing in people. It additionally incorporates acknowledgement of value of differences, culmination of differences, and promotion of inclusiveness. The managers may also confront the problem of loss in personnel and work productivity as a result of the prejudice and discrimination and complaints and legal actions against the organization. The negative attitudes and activities can still be obstacles to organizational diversity since they can hinder the working relationships and affect the morality and work productivity. The negative attitudes and behaviors in the workplace incorporate prejudice, stereotyping and discrimination that are never applied by the management while employing, retaining and terminating practices. Management of the diversity is therefore involves somewhat more than simply guaranteeing the equal employment opportunities and positive action. The managers should think of the reformation as a slow process simultaneously promoting change. (Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits, Challenges, and the Required Managerial Tools)
On the basis of the results of evaluation of the contemporary environment and devising of the planning for the workforce the agency has the appropriate identification of the type and number of positions to be fulfilled along with the targeted needs. The agency then is prepared for devising the required approach to find out and employ the diverse and skilled workforce so as to accomplish the mission of the agency. In order to create a diverse workforce, agencies are required to incorporate tailored strategies to employ and hire these individuals into their overall strategies. (Building and Maintaining a Diverse Workforce) Encouragement of workforce diversity is therefore a process that infuses in many stages and at many levels. It is required that the HR professionals must at first employ competent and qualified staff and then have room for the individual necessities amidst the prevailing structure of work team and the organization. (Recruiting and Managing a Diverse Workforce)
The basic necessity of the successful recruitment is to attract strong candidates those are prepared both to meet the strategic goals and priorities and to work in the environment of the agency. After searching out the skilled candidates the agency is required to hire them. Accomplishing a diverse and highly competent workforce by successful attraction and hiring of the desired employee mix is only considered to be the initiation. The heavy investment on recruitment and hiring of high competent employee involves the danger of the wasting of these efforts in absence of a powerful retention approach. The next goal of the agency is to make certain the retention of the skilled employees within the agency. The goal is to concentrate on the secondary set of elements to be incorporated in the planning and implementation of the diversity program of the agency. (Building and Maintaining a Diverse Workforce)
An assisting work environment is considered to be one that safeguards the employees with the basic direction and instruments they require to perform the work of the organization to the very best of their competence. The Federal Government is offering many government-wide programs to assist the employees; and the rest of the assistance is provided by the individual agencies. The professional development and training opportunities are significant factors so as to ensure retention of the employees with the organization. The system of the organization responsible for providing incentives and engage the employees act as key of maintaining a diverse and high quality workforce. All the people are desirous of seeing their efforts recognized. Moreover the agencies are required to be vigilant about ensuring that merit and result as impetus for differences in rewards. The agencies are required to utilize all facets of pay flexibilities and awards to retain top employees. (Building and Maintaining a Diverse Workforce)
Another crucial requirement in managing diversity is in promoting a ‘safe’ place for associates to communicate. The social gatherings and business meetings where every member is required to listen and have the opportunity to ventilate is taken to be better ways of creating dialogues. The managers are required to execute policies like mentoring programs to assist the associates to evaluate the information and opportunities. Further it is essential to always extend the necessary feedback for learning their weaknesses and successes. (Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits, Challenges, and the Required Managerial Tools) The program is taken to be an effective one that is embedded with the culture and the business processes of an agency and is sustained over time. The agencies are capable of taking various steps to smoothen their continuity.
The agencies are required to devise new systems of measuring to intermittently watch and evaluate the successfulness of their diversity efforts and formulate modifications wherever necessary. The results are required to be collective and formulated in collaboration with senior managers and supervisors. To be successful in developing and sustaining strong diversity efforts the agency heads are required to make their staffs like senior executives, managers and supervisors responsible for accomplishment of the results. The OPM also evaluate the effectiveness of the agency in executing different diversity initiatives. Additionally, making the managers and supervisors responsible for building and maintaining a diverse, high quality workforce, agencies are required to take adequate precautions to acknowledge the success duly. (Building and Maintaining a Diverse Workforce)
Conclusion:
To conclude, a diverse workforce represents a changing world and marketplace. Diverse work groups are taken to be of much significance to the organizations. Regard to the individual differences entails benefits to the workplace with the creation of competitive environment and enhancement of work productivity. The effective management of diversity benefits the associates by creating a fair and safe environment where everyone has a reach to the opportunities and challenges. The instruments of management in a diverse workforce are required to be employed to make understand everyone about the diversity and its concerns along with associated laws and regulations. Since the workplaces are strangled with increasing diverse cultures the organizations are required to learn the ways to become familiarized so as to be successful. Emphasizing diversity is taken to be a persistent effort of every professional development program beginning from the top executives to employees at all the lower levels within the agency.
References
Building and Maintaining a Diverse Workforce” (25 June 2000) Retrieved at http://www.opm.gov/Diversity/diversity-3.htm. Accessed on 15 January, 2005
Creating a Diverse Workforce” Retrieved from Retrieved at http://www.businessweek.com/adsections/diversity/diversework.htm. Accessed on 15 January, 2005
Recruiting and Managing a Diverse Workforce” Retrieved at http://www.vault.com/nr/newsmain.jsp?nr_page=3&ch_id=402&article_id=19018&cat_id=1102Accessed on 15 January, 2005
Green, Kelli A; L. pez, Mayra; Wysocki, Allen; Kepner, Karl. “Diversity in the Workplace: Benefits, Challenges, and the Required Managerial Tools” University of Florida Cooperative Extension Service Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences. Retrieved at http://www.minoritygraduate.com/feature27.asp. Accessed on 15 January, 2005
Leading a Diverse Workforce” U.S. Department of Transportation. Retrieved at http://dothr.ost.dot.gov/toolkit/Diversity_/Leading_a_Diverse/leading_a_diverse.html. Accessed on 15 January, 2005
Nwabueze, Uche. “Managing Diverse Workforce — Views of a Bystander: Management, Recruitment, Socialization, Teamwork” Retrieved at http://diversity-conference.com/ProposalSystem/Presentations/P000720Accessed on 15 January, 2005
